What do gallstones feel like

[Kalei87]

for a few weeks I have had indigestion starting In the usual normal place for heartburn, centrally in the sternum, I feel like I need to burp, but can’t, then keep getting painful hiccups.

I’ve been taking nexium and gaviscon. This does help with the heartburn but then sometimes it travels down and turns into this pain relentlessly nagging and burning kind of gnawing pain for hours and hours that is more on the right hand side where my rib cage ends. No pain in my back. It feels like I have lots of trapped gas, but I don’t, as nothing is happening other than just having this pain. I have to lie down for ages and eventually it might go away of its own accord but nothing I do helps the pain to go apart from time. I’m not sick otherwise in any other way just this pain is ruining my life! It does hurt if I press on the area a bit

Earlier I felt ok a little bit of indigestion. I ate a normal healthy breakfast but then I was at a kids party and the only food was a slice of pizza, I was hungry, couldn’t leave and no other options so I ate one slice and since then I have been lying down for 5 hours with this pain. Regret regret.

I have nothing to compare this to so just wondered if this sounds like an ulcer or something. I will go see a doctor but just wondered if the 2 things might be related in anyone else’s experience

I had pancreatitis caused by gallstones and I wouldn't wish that pain on anyone, it was horrific. I had my gallbladder taken out as soon as the pancreas inflammation had settled and whilst waiting for the op, I did have two 'attacks' which were equally as dreadful. At one point, I distinctly remember clutching my DH's hand and asking him to go find someone with a gun - I honestly meant it too.

I remember a doctor at the time saying "you must have very small stones in there, Sebs". Apparently, the smaller the stones, the easier it is for them to work their way down the bile duct, and it is this movement that causes the 'get me a gun' type of pain. He said that when the stones are larger, they typically cause less intense pain because they simply can't move around as much, but can cause a blockage in the bile duct and this will often cause less intense, but longer lasting pain than that caused by smaller stones. Chronic versus acute, I guess.

A quick US scan will confirm or rule out gallstones, so definitely book an appointment with the GP as whatever it is, it wants looking into.

That makes sense @Sebsaloysius - explains why I had long-lasting but less excruciating pain than others have experienced. I always wondered, it's not that I have super human tolerance to pain then!

The attacks get worse and worse. I remember eyeing up the kitchen knives during one attack towards the end, wondering how hard it'd be to remove it myself. Sounds nut now, but at the time I was considering the feasibility.

I agree with your granny, it was like being shot. Worst pain I’ve ever had.

This was one of mine. There were two of these bad bastards.

I agree, worse than childbirth, I had no idea what it was and thought I must be dying.

Holy moly!

I think I have whatever is the sludge or a grumble. I don’t think it is a fully stuck stone it’s not like childbirth. It’s still bloody uncomfortable. I will go get liver etc checked out too. The worst of the pain has passed I’m now just in uncomfortable discomfort

My advice is to exaggerate the pain you’re in. The quicker your gallbladder’s out, the better.

I’ve had this on a number of occasions and I added up the longest was 16 hours! So I will make sure I tell them about all this

If any help while I waited for the operation the doctor phoned me and told me to cut out all fatty foods - I stopped having puddings and cheese was a biggy to stop too. You want to get checked out ASAP to get the ball rolling.

When I get an attack usually middle of the night I take 2 buscopan, drink a load of squash, drink some apple juice mixed with apple cider vinegar and then go back to bed with a peppermint tea.

I also cuddle a hot water bottle to ease it.

@Kalei87 Immediately adopting a very low fat diet whilst you are waiting for investigation will help. Skimmed milk, no animal fats, 0% fat yoghurt, no meat will help. Good luck.

A bad idea . . . really, you don't need and shouldnt do this. My response to the poster suggesting lieing.

Thanks I do usually eat this way. I had one slice of pizza and this happened! The other day I think it was bread that set it off. I will start keeping a track. I had this happen to me once 2 years ago after eating a pitta bread and then it didn’t happen again until recently so I didn’t go to the GP as it seemed to be a one off

Why not? I was in agony frequently, they knew how big my stones were and I still had to wait four months for surgery. When it was done my gallbladder was on the point of bursting. What’s wrong with exaggerating the symptoms to hurry it up? I wish I had.

What tell them that it goes on for hours?

I won’t tell them I have a high pain threshold but it was enough to put me to bed for hours on end anyway so I will just explain and I assume they will do various tests to find out. It could be my liver, I hope not.

I had this for years & didn't realise it was my gallbladder. The gallbladder produces bile which is designed to break down fatty foods, so those tend to be the things that set it off. The sudden pain is usually the gallstones moving down the bile duct, triggered by the food eaten. The one thing i remember triggering attacks (including vomiting & that horrendous pain worse than childbirth) was the icing on Costco cakes - I only ever had that occasionally but the time between was long enough for me to forget the last attack & stupidly have another bite of a cake someone had for a birthday or whatever. But it was lots of things that the gallbladder was designed to help break down to aid digestion.

It took 18 mths from confirmed diagnosis to getting mine removed but towards the end of the wait, I had the worst attack, and had to wait another 2/3 weeks til I got my op. Turned out a gallstone had got stuck in my bile duct & the surgeon couldn't figure out how I'd lasted that last 2/3 weeks.

Go & get checked out so you can catch it before it caused other problems.

It sounds very similar to how my gallstones/pancreatitis started. Basically like very bad trapped wind in my ribcage that I just couldn't get rid of.

This. 100%. Even when I had a stone stuck in my bile duct, I still couldn't get them to give me a quicker date for my op. Instead of going into A&E when that happened, I went to the out of hours service & they gave me indigestion tablets. Which did nothing.

Mine was similar. I had a scan during pregnancy for something unrelated where the sonographer noted 'sludge' in my gall bladder, but at that point it hadn't given me any bother. My trouble really started when DS was eight weeks old, with the awful trapped-wind feeling. It got worse and worse over 3 days and I eventually got admitted to hospital because I was being sick and nearly passing out. Then once I was in A&E they established it was actually pancreatitis, and I ended up staying in for about 4 nights so they could stabilise me. I had my gallbladder out by keyhole surgery about a fortnight after that.

Alarmed by talk of pancreatitis so I will be going to the doctors to talk to them. Sorry so many of you had to go through this, it sucks. At least I can try control my diet a bit to avoid triggers in the meantime. I have always been prone to heartburn and had an endoscopy in 2020 which showed nothing, not even a hiatus hernia. I once had hpylori (that was really painful tbh) but I’ve never had an ultrasound on my gallbladder and sounds like it’s time I did.

Yes the trapped wind that’s not trapped wind is the exact description. If I could have let all the air out it felt like that would have solved it but the pain has calmed down and there was no air! So I didn’t have any big moment of release so it cannot be just trapped wind

Definitely exaggerate the pain! I was on the list for a whole year for the op and this was 7 years ago when the NHS was slightly less on its knees.

Annoyingly I've started getting slight pain recently from where I had it removed, but it's nothing compared to the pain of gallstones.

You have my sympathy it's horrible!

Good luck. I hope you get treatment quickly. It’s rubbish never knowing when the next attack will come.

My experience was indigestion-like but extreme pain, that was initially (without scans etc.) treated as an ulcer, and then later investigated with a 24h-acid scope and an endoscopy, to no clear result, brushed off as "irritation in the esophagus" and treated with Lanzoprasole, that I was told I would probably never be able to come off. After FIFTEEN (15) years of this, I moved countries, and within weeks, had an attack that was checked out with an ultrasound and then a CT and MRI, was diagnosed as acute cholecystitis (gallbladder infection), and had an operation scheduled for within 8 weeks (they needed it to settle down). The result of the operation was that my gallbladder was apparently already holier than a whole college of saints, and was clinging in desparation to the surrounding organs, turning what should have been a simple keyhole surgery into a long open operation and a long recovery (I'm now the proud owner of a jar of 26 elegantly striped large gallstones). Now, I'm medication-free and eating pretty normally, although I am a bit careful as to just how many cheesy sausages I eat in one sitting. I'm a bit annoyed, still, at how long I was left with the wrong diagnosis: it seems someone ought to have had the idea of doing an ultrasound a bit earlier (i.e. 15 years), given that my presentation of pain in the stomach area, rather than on the right side, is a bit unusual, but seemingly not all that unusual.

Your symptoms sound very familiar to me. Although of course they could just as well be something else entirely, it might be a good idea to rule out the gallbladder, and an ultrasound might be a sensible non-invasive first step. It would, in my case and in retrospect, have been a much more sensible first step than the acid test and endoscopy.

The most horrific pain.

Can be eased by vomiting.

Stop eating any fat (not even an egg) and it will keep it under control.

I paid thousands to have mine removed privately.